Of all the things that have hampered performance over the last two decades, vehicle weight is at the top of the list. Automakers have responded by putting more power under the hood to make up for the extra pounds, and BMW is as guilty as the rest – particularly with its M cars. The first (E30) M3 came packing a 2.3-liter four-pot and was able to put out an astonishing (at the time) 212 197 hp. When the E36 came along a few years later, the cylinder count increased by two and stayed that way through the E46 generation until today, where the new E92 M3 is motivated by a 4.0-liter V8 outputting more than double of the original, but also weighing considerably more.

So what's the next step? BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer is at least aware of this fact and mentioned to Auto Motor und Sport that he'd like to see the next batch of M cars lose a few cylinders, while simultaneously dropping the pounds. He points to the twin-turbocharged inline-six in the 135i, 335i and 535i as a good indication of what the future might hold, particularly in the case of the M-badged variants that would make more use of forced induction rather than upgraded displacement and higher cylinder counts (not that they could get much higher). We can only dream, but with emissions standards increasing across the globe, it's the next logical evolution of the performance breed.

I mentioned proof of this when I quoted an interview of Gerhard Richter, ex-VP of M GmbH.

Listen guys, this is good. On one hand, weight should go down. That's good. That's really good. Two, while we might lose out on the ultra-responsive NA goodness that has been the M engines of past, we'll simultaneously recieve a highly tunable FI engine as a result.

I'm not too disturbed by this news. As much as I prefer NA engines, this is really okay for me.

I'm a fan of forced induction and the 335i is awesome, the down side to it is everytime you add something under the hood makes it that more expensive to fix if something goes wrong. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Can you guys be more specific towards your complaints against turbos? Just out of curiosity, I'm not as well versed in engine technology as a bunch of you on the thread, and am wondering exactly why turbos are bad?

Only BimmerLoyalist mentioned a downside: responsiveness. But isn't BMW proving that this can be worked around? The 35 engine has essentially no lag, right?